The invention relates to tampons, including catamenial tampons.
Tampons are typically manufactured by cutting an absorbent material into a desired length, forming the length of material into a pledget, and compressing the pledget.
A long standing problem with tampons has been their tendency to leak prematurely, i.e., prior to full saturation with menstrual fluid, due to local conditions of oversaturation and undersaturation in the absorbent material.
The absorbency of a tampon at full saturation is determined, in major part, by the fiber weight which is used in the tampon. Increasing the fiber weight will increase absorbency, but will also deleteriously increase the cost and size of the tampon. Increasing absorbency is generally not a cure for premature leakage; it typically increases the total absorption at leakage, but does not avoid leakage prior to full saturation.
Conventional tampons are typically manufactured using absorbent material comprised of short fibers provided in the form of a nonwoven web. These nonwoven materials can be prone to "fiber fluff off", i.e., detachment of the short fibers from the tampon during use or removal of the tampon.
Another known tampon construction, which in the past has sometimes been proposed as a solution to fiber fluff off, is a bundle of continuous long filaments, i.e., a "filament tow". Such tampons are described in, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,177,872, 3,320,956, and 2,934,068.